A Department of Veterans’ Affairs hospital on Long Island was forced to close its five operating rooms after air ducts began to emit sand-size black particles. The air ducts are part of the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s HVAC system, which provides heating, ventilating, and air conditioning and therefore controls air quality and helps mitigate germ transmission. New York Times reported: An environmental analysis of the air quality at the Northport hospital by Environmental Analysis Associates, a San Diego firm that specializes in the identification of indoor air-quality problems associated with dust contamination, found that the particulates came from oxidizing...

A vermin infestation has overrun the kitchen of a suburban Chicago Veterans Affairs hospital and is reportedly so severe that cockroaches routinely crawl across countertops as cooks prepare meals. The insects have even found their way into patients’ food, employees say. The bug invasion has attracted the attention of a U.S. senator who is demanding to know how the VA is fixing the problem. It’s just the latest scandal at an agency rocked by allegations of abuse, incompetence and the needless deaths of veterans who wait years for medical appointments.

The Denver Veterans Affairs hospital has taken tremendous fire for cost overruns of a billion dollars, but a new report shows that, had the VA engaged in better planning and real-time accountability, the facility could have looked like the new Parkland hospital in Dallas, which finished almost on time and on budget. A new report from the National Center for Policy Analysis compares reconstruction efforts at the VA hospital in Denver with the redesign of the Parkland hospital, which has quickly become one of the busiest hospitals in the country. Parkland features the second-largest burn unit and ranks in sixth...

The Department of Veterans Affairs took another hit today as news surfaced that an email had been circulated to staffers at an Indianapolis VA hospital making fun of the mental health problems suffered by returning combat veterans. The Dec. 18 message included several images of a toy Christmas elf, according to The Indianapolis Star, which obtained the email. The email was sent by social worker Robin Paul to her staff within the Seamless Transition Integrated Care Clinic at the Roudebush VA Medical Center. In one photograph, the elf pleads for Xanax, which is prescribed to treat anxiety and panic. The...

Veterans are outraged after a KMPH FOX 26 News investigation reveals the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Fresno was caught blocking the “Fox News Channel” from a hospital waiting room. Is it a mistake or something more? Veteran Bob McLaughlin says, “It was just beyond amazement because I know Fox News has been pretty heavy on any of the government things coming out, especially the Veteran Affairs Hospital scandal.” …

I may have figured out why the Department of Veterans Affairs had such difficulty finding time to treat patients. It’s because it was working overtime to give its chapels a religiously neutral makeover. But as VA officials in Iron Mountain, Mich., learned, one man’s renovation is another man’s desecration. Some folks in Iron Mountain became infuriated earlier this month when they discovered that statues of Jesus and Mary, along with a cross and altar, were hidden behind a curtain in the chapel of the VA hospital there. The chapel still has stained glass windows, though for how long is unclear....

A California woman says Veterans Administration hospital guards beat her husband to death after he waited four hours for dialysis. Norma Montano says her husband of 44 years, Jonathan, died of a stroke on June 11, 2011, after he was beaten and had his carotid artery stomped by VA guards. Montano says the hospital also lied to her about what happened to her husband. Montano’s son and daughter are also plaintiffs in the suit. Montano says he husband was tired of waiting, but when he tried to leave and go to another facility, he “was told by the nursing staff...

Rationing: Government-run VA health clinics have been caught falsifying records to hide obscenely long and sometimes deadly delays in treating veterans. Welcome to the future of health care under ObamaCare. The VA recently decided to investigate one of its Colorado outpatient clinics to see how it handled patient delays. What it found was shocking, but not surprising. While delays for many of the 6,300 veterans treated at the clinic stretched out for months, clerks there were told to falsify dates so it appeared that everyone was being seen in a timely fashion. Those who didn't play along ended up on...

"An elderly blind veteran crying in pain spent four hours and 45 minutes in the emergency room of the VA Medical Center in North Las Vegas before seeing a doctor in October, but federal inspectors said in a report Wednesday that such long waits were not unusual for patients at the hospital." (snip) "Niccum died on Nov. 15 at a local hospice after a bout with a colon disorder. The Navy veteran had racked up 5,000 volunteer service hours helping veterans and staff at VA facilities."

Boys and girls at Grace Academy in Prosper, Tex., spent most of last Friday making homemade Christmas cards for bedridden veterans at the VA hospital in Dallas. Fourth-grader Gracie Brown was especially proud of her card, hoping it would “make their day because their family might live far away, and they might not have somebody to celebrate Christmas with.” “I’d like them to know they’ve not been forgotten and somebody wanted to say thank you,” Gracie told MyFoxDFW.com. Gracie’s card read, “Merry Christmas. Thank you for your service.” It also included an American flag. But the bedridden veterans at the...

Shortages of beds, doctors and nurses in the Baltimore VA Medical Center’s emergency room resulted in nearly half of a sample of patients spending more than 6 hours at the facility, including one who waited more than 24 hours, according to a critical inspection report released this month. … The Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general’s office detailed the shortcomings in a report that criticized the hospital’s leadership for lacking policies to provide on-call doctors and nurses to boost staffing when patient volume surged. Backups in treating patients led to some being examined in the emergency department’s triage area, without...

Here’s the story: a patient (who doesn’t want to be named) was at a VA hospital for a colonoscopy — not a routine one, but because of a problem that could be serious. As he tells it: 9 am in or prep room IV and muscle relaxant … given- they’ll give me heavier dose of something before they go in. Sat there near an hour when lady walks in “Govt Shut down. If you’re not in, they’re out.” that was it. Went to patient advocate she had been sent home almost as soon as she arrived I’m guessing to head...

In writing, especially in the era of the new media, you’re only as good as your last publication… in our case, that was a couple of weeks ago. Dee, my fearless editor, and I both have full time careers. Dee in particular has an awful lot on her plate… I honestly don’t understand how she does it all. We’ve experienced a sort of enforced hiatus due to a long overdue hiatal hernia reduction that I should have taken care of years ago. The operation, as such, went extremely well, except that I contracted pneumonia as a result of the anesthesia…...

PHILADELPHIA – The Department of Veterans Affairs was fined $227,500 after incorrect radiation doses were given to 97 veterans with prostate cancer at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, a federal agency announced Wednesday. (Article excerpted per Yahoo's rule).

The government option? Government controlled co-op? Beware of fluffy, cutsie-pie nice sounding 1,500 page bill amendments attached in the dead of night. Government sucess stories: Social Security Medicare Medicaid The Veterans Administration Above are four government run healthcare systems well run, well administered and loved by doctors and hospitals. After four successes like the ones listed above, let’s let them have government take over one more program and control all private doctors and private insurance. After all, they’ll base the new system on their previous successes.

A Spokane man watched in desperation as his dying friend struggled for breath, but he couldn't get immediate assistance from professionals just inside Spokane's Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Instead those VA staffers dialed 911 to get help for the man in the hospital parking lot. "Calling the fire department was quicker than getting equipment and bringing it back out or finding someone who could offer the medical assistance," said hospital director Joe Manley. Paramedics arrived in four minutes, according to Spokane Fire Department dispatch logs. Clinton L. "Foxx" Fuller, 83, of Spokane, died at Deaconess Medical Center, an hour and...

DURHAM, N.C. — A group of Duke University physicians has threatened to stop treating military veterans referred by the Veterans Affairs Medical Center because the VA won’t pay enough. Executives of Duke’s Private Diagnostic Clinic physicians’ group voted to stop treating the veterans Jan. 15 because the VA system wouldn’t agree to pay them more than 100 percent of current Medicare reimbursement rates. PDC Executive Director Paul Newman wrote in a Jan. 7 memo that the group wouldn’t treat VA patients. The new rule was to take effect Jan. 15, according to the memo, but apparently hasn’t. “As far as...

DURHAM, N.C. — A group of Duke University physicians has threatened to stop treating military veterans referred by the Veterans Affairs Medical Center because the VA won’t pay enough. Executives of Duke’s Private Diagnostic Clinic physicians’ group voted to stop treating the veterans Jan. 15 because the VA system wouldn’t agree to pay them more than 100 percent of current Medicare reimbursement rates. PDC Executive Director Paul Newman wrote in a Jan. 7 memo that the group wouldn’t treat VA patients. The new rule was to take effect Jan. 15, according to the memo, but apparently hasn’t. “As far as...

Dallas VA hospital is nation's worst Officials say they've eliminated most problems in federal report 07:00 AM CST on Tuesday, January 18, 2005 By DOUG J. SWANSON / The Dallas Morning News The Dallas veterans hospital is so dirty, dangerous and poorly managed, federal investigators have found, that it ranks as the worst such medical center in the country. Investigators' report says the Dallas veterans hospital 'did not maintain a consistently clean and safe environment.' An inspector general's report for the Department of Veterans Affairs said the scores for the North Texas Health Care System place it last among all...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Maggots were born in the noses of two comatose patients four years ago at a city Veteran's Administration hospital infested by mice and flies, according to a medical journal report released Monday. The story in the Archives of Internal Medicine details the 1998 infestation. It said mice would sometimes dash over the feet of employees in the hospital director's suite. Hospital officials said the hospital no longer has any cleanliness problems. Barbara Shatto, the hospital's quality manager, said the hospital scored 99 out of 100 when it was inspected by the Joint Commission on Accreditation...